I'm feeling the weight of Mothers Day today. The weight doesn't come from my mother, it comes from within me as a recovering Addict and alcoholic because in my active addiction I often chose drinking or using over the needs of my three children.
I live my amends for that every day but no day more than Mothers Day.
When my children were small, Mothers Day was mostly their Dad's responsibility: to get a card, or make and help deliver an interesting breakfast in bed, get something from the store, or wrap a special schoolmade item for my special day. I adored those times: everyone giggling and snuggling together in bed and talking over each other, telling me which breakfast item they Made or which handicraft was their Creation. Life wasn't always perfect, their father and I were not a good match but the kids were resilient and happy for the most part.
After the divorce my lifelong struggles with addiction worsened and my disease began whispering that surely my children were old enough (at 11, 14 and 17) to be left alone together while I lived the single, party-girl life. When my sons both decided to live with their father full-time, the addicted part of my brain consoled me again, drowning painful reality by checking me out of my life almost completely.
I left town for 6 months, justifying abandoning my youngest to live with her father full-time with the argument that I needed "space" to get my head together. I sold my house and blew the small profits I did make on more drugs and alcohol and constant "road trips". I renamed myself with a brief-lived childhood nickname and became "Mickie" tied to a fantasy of a musician-hippie-bohemian lifestyle my 'addict' brain told me I could pull off at age 41.
That was the year I missed Mothers Day for the first time. The awkward Skype promises-apologies-repeat rhythm of those conversations still haunt me, filling me a guilt that is difficult to shake. What kind of mother did that make me?
It took me three more years to start answering that question. I missed another Mothers Day #2 while in treatment for chemical dependancy. I remained in the grips of baffling, powerful and cunning disease. I was a mother who had no idea how to live life on life's terms, who had been running for so long I was full of fear about how to be clean and sober. A mother who hadn't been consistently clean or sober for decades, except (barely) through most of her pregnancies.
After treatment, counselling, 12 Step meetings, thousands of conversations with fellow addicts in recovery, years of indigenous ceremonies and hard soul searching work I am coming to the realization that no amount of time that passes will erase the past. I am still working on forgiving myself for Mickie's mistakes and assumptions.
What kind of mother does that make me? I think that makes me like alot of moms out there, not perfect, doing the best they can with what they have. ❤ Michelle
started in May 2018
finished December 8 2018
